


Homura's No Good, Very Bad Session

by Orajje



Category: Homestuck, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Time Travel, a small nod to alt calliope, and you can't make me, i did not read the epilogues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:34:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26655967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orajje/pseuds/Orajje
Summary: Homura was certainly not expecting to be thrust into some weird "game" after an attempt to repeat once more, and she certainly doesn't appreciate this "one player session" difficulty she got stuck with.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Homura Would Like To Go Home

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Potato and Hollow

Homura watched as Madoka’s witch barrier encompassed the horizon. She’d failed again. She didn’t even have a body to cry over as it had been instantly encompassed by the barrier. The only living thing nearby other than herself was the incubator, who was going on about how with Madoka’s witch the Earth's quota was met… again. She had heard it quite a few times by now, even if she tried to avoid this ending at all costs.

She got off of her knees, and began walking away. Just as the incubator figured out what she was doing, she left. Reality shattering into a twisted tunnel around her as she activated her shield. 

Which is also why she wasn’t prepared for when the pulling feeling it always created seemed to stutter, and then greatly **_increase._ ** She immediately realized something was wrong as it pulled her in odd directions and then seemed to begin to go even _faster_ . She was beginning to panic at this point, her powers had never done this before. So she had absolutely no idea what was going on. As the swirling patterns of her time travel sped up around her, she almost thought she saw a weird looking face out of the corner of her eye. Just as she was about to try manually messing with the shield, everything suddenly _stopped._ Causing her to fall on her face from the sudden change in velocity. 

As she got up she found herself in a strange cavern. _Then she saw it._ A massive, red… Worm? Serpent? Witch? She didn’t know, but where its face should be light radiated outwards, and heated up the entire cavern. Just as she was about to use her shield, she heard its voice. **“Welcome, Witch of Time.”**

It’s “voice” was strange and reminiscent of the incubator's telepathy, and she shouldn’t have been able to understand its language. Yet she had perfectly understood what it said… She brought up her shield and tried to use it, when she noticed the sand wasn’t falling. _Her time travel wasn’t charging._ She wasn’t sure what this thing was, or if it had anything to do with why her shield wasn’t able to engage its most vital function, but it hadn’t attacked her yet so she decided to talk to it for now. Especially since it called her a witch… did it know about the final stage of magical girls? Any info she could get from it would be helpful if as long as she was careful. “Hello? What are you, and where are we?” she asked.

It seemed to shift lightly to get a slightly better look at her, and that's when she realized that she could sense its power. The problem was that it was so powerful it had saturated the room, almost suffocating her with its sheer weight.“ **... How impudent, Is it not customary for a human to give their name before asking for another's?”** shit.

“I am Homura Akemi” she responded hastily.

**“... Acceptable, I will overlook this transgression for now due to the uniqueness of this situation. I am Yaldabaoth, The most powerful Denizen and god of all monsters. This is my cavern in a long forgotten and dead world, where all who once lived died a long time ago.”**

She was not expecting that. Although if this world was forgotten and dead… then Madoka wasn’t here. which hadn’t automatically recharged like it normally did when Madoka died early. She had occasionally had an odd timeline, but nothing like this. “... would you happen to know a way for me to go home?” if her shield wasn’t cooperating then she should ask. If Yaldabaoth gets angry she can always stop time and run.

Its glow almost seemed to get oppressive as it began talking. **“There is one way you could do so yes. I would give you a Choice. If you so chose, I could grant you such a reward, however it would have a steep price. Do you still wish to hear the terms of the Choice?”**

She could almost feel Yaldabaoth watching her after it said that, its glow seemingly on the edge of burning. She almost just said for him to send her back, she wouldn’t allow herself to be dissuaded from saving Madoka. However she knew how badly running headfirst into such things that could turn out. “What is the choice?”

Yaldaboath seemed to specifically lean down a bit, its presence and light bordering on unbearable even with her natural resilience as a magical girl. Making it hard outright to _breathe. Like when she was still powerless._ “ **The Choice is that you can either die here on this world, either to me, your soul gem, yourself, or to this world. As there is nothing here in this world to sustain you. By doing so you may be able to help others in terrible situations as a martyr. Or, you can play the Game. By playing Sburb and gaining victory from a single player session, You will gain a way home. As well as many other things. However, a single player session is considered a punishment for those arrogant enough to attempt it, and it will be extremely difficult.”** she thought for a moment, and looked again at her shield, but before she could say anything as Yaldabaoth spoke again **“Due to the powers that brought you here, you will be unable to use your shield to go back to your home just by waiting and using it. I am also not the one preventing its use in such a manner, it is just not built to do so.”**

That… was bad. Assuming it was telling the truth, that meant her only options were death, and a difficult “game” of some sort. She was well and truly stuck. Not to mention that it specifically calling out her soul gem in such a way meant it definitely knew about the final stage of magical girls. Her only other options were to explore the world and hope there was something Yaldabaoth lied or didn’t know about, or fight the source of the oppressive power. His power still near choking the air out of her lungs through exposure made that decision seem unwise. Not even Walpurgisnachts presence was this passively hostile to those nearby. 

She looked down at her soul gem, while it wasn’t currently too dark, she had used most of her grief seeds in her last fight, so exploring an entire world would be unfeasible. while it was difficult so close to Yaldabaoth, she didn’t sense anything living within the range of her senses. Which meant that the only other option was death, which was unacceptable.

…

“Would I be able to use my powers in the game?”

**“Yes, this is a game of skill and power. Anything you can bring to the table is permitted, and the power of the session should allow you to use your time travel once again.”**

She winced, it hadn’t directly mentioned what her abilities were, so she had hoped it didn’t know their exact nature. But that had been the final nail in the coffin. To make things worse, that meant there really was only one choice she could make under these circumstances, she would just have to make sure that she didn’t lose. Even if it took her hundreds of times to get it right.

“I will play your game Yaldabaoth.” 

**“Very well. When you finally see me again, it will be to fight me. Make sure you are ready for our fight as I will not hold back, and I do not show mercy.”**

Just as she was about to respond, Yaldabaoth’s power flared, and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looks at my only other fic  
> ...  
> ill get back to that soon  
> probably  
> might redo the first chapter before i release the next  
> that first chapter forces my brain to shut down and skim it.


	2. Homura Plays a Video Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by potato

When everything suddenly came back into focus she found herself in a new location. Homura winced, suddenly being flung into strange locations repeatedly wasn’t pleasant. but she had bigger concerns now. First she checked her shield again, which was still in exactly the same condition she had left it, damn. So she looked around and took in her surroundings. She was in a plain grey room, that seemed to have the bare minimum someone could have left her for this situation.

There were also three things that stood out, a closed door, a staircase leading up to another door, which was either the roof or another floor, and a desk with various normal and odd things on it. She used her shield to store everything other than the computer that was on the desk, better to have everything important on her if she needed it or couldn’t get back into the room for some reason. Then she headed over to the door. She needed to have a lay of the land if she was going to play this “game”. Opening the door, a wasteland spread out before her, the night sky illuminating it with an odd looking red moon. Having the world be bathed in red light instead of blue was… disconcerting. The whole place reminded her of witches' labyrinths.

Vaguely unnerved, she went back inside and walked up the stairs. She found it led to the roof. Where the miles of moonlit red wasteland stared back at her, if this was “outside the game”, she was not looking forward to the actual thing. There didn’t appear to be anything else up there so she quickly walked back downstairs over to the desk. She quickly went through the things she had mindlessly put into her shield before, a bunch of strange cards, a desktop computer, a small booklet, and two disks. One of the discs was labeled client, while the other server. She took a random guess and assumed from what Yaldabaoth said that this was an example of why a single player session was considered a punishment, you _really_ weren’t supposed to play it by yourself.

Not that that would stop her. She turned on the desktop and put in both disks, once they began installing she looked at the other items. First she grabbed the cards- … they… disappeared? What? Wait, it was hard to notice at first because of how well it fit in, but she could sort of feel the presence of those cards. One of them had even been seemingly... filled? With another kind of card. She tried pulling it up similarly to using her magic, but focusing so that she didn’t actually call upon her magic, and suddenly had a weird green card in her hands. Evidently these cards were some form of hammerspace similar to her shield, although this one seemed more accessible on the fly… she would have to test its limits and uses later. 

Next was the booklet, within which was some basic knowledge on the game. It explained the captchalogue cards, array modus, and the strife specibus she had picked up. Which she quickly set to rifles and added a couple of the ones she preferred for quick access. Next was something more important. 

_“Due to the unique nature of this session, it will truly begin shortly after you enter the Medium. Whereupon the timers will start. Your goal in the session will be to take out and conquer every generated planet in a row, and then use the explosives found within to launch the planet into the black hole in the center of the Medium. Each planet will have a shorter timer than the last, and the eighth is the final planet.”_

Homura furrowed her eyebrows in slight confusion, she looked through the booklet, but it appeared the rest of it were instructions on how to use a computer and other basic things… perhaps this was an edited version of a base guide they gave to anomalous players? But the nature of her task was a bit absurd. Although it was a “game”, so she probably shouldn’t be so surprised. Then she looked up and saw the installer wasn’t completely done yet, so she pulled out some of the important objects she would need ready at a moments notice and captchalogue’d them. It was mostly some of her remaining pipe bombs, most of her heavier firepower was used against Walpurgisnacht. 

She also began messing with her captchalogue cards, pulling them out and looking at them. Flipping them over, and reading the odd codes the filled ones had. Really just generally familiarizing herself with this new part of her arsenal, when she finally heard the dings of the installers finishing up. She quickly began setting them up, which took her a frustrating amount of time as she wasn’t really used to setting up video games, let alone setting up said video games incorrectly. 

After finishing the setup and connecting them to each other, she found herself looking at herself from above! She quickly looked where the camera must be but saw nothing… she looked back at the screen and tried to look around using it, and found she was able to... This was getting more unnerving by the second. Although she probably shouldn’t be surprised since she’s somehow playing a video game that seems to have power over reality, but this just wasn’t a level of weirdness something she was quite used to, even with her years of experience as an actual magical girl.

She wondered what Kyoko would think of it. Would she have played with her given the chance?

Nevermind, it doesn’t matter what any of the others would think right now, she had to do this. As she poked through the games menus there was only one thing she could deploy, the Cruxtarder, which she deployed on the roof after a moment of fiddling with the controls. Unfortunately this appeared to be the end of what she could do using the interface for now. So she quickly went up to the odd object on her roof, ignoring the odd lighting of the red moon. Inspecting the device, it had a turnable wheel on the side that seemed stuck to an extent, whenever she turned it the cap on top of the machine pushed up a bit. Maybe there was something in there? She tried pulling the cap off manually with her fingers, and then a crowbar, but both failed. Maybe it was some sort of odd button? It did have a weird symbol that the installers had also used. She brought her fist down on it and felt it move a bit.

Maybe a bit more force? She quickly brought down her fist with her magically enhanced strength. Causing a weird glowing thing and a solid purple tube to pop out as the cap blew off. Well that was easy- then the weird glowing thing turned into a _black hole!_ As she grabbed one of the roof’s edges, she watched as everything began being sucked in! She initiated her timestop, which stopped the black hole from growing in size. She then had a horrifying realization. _Oh, Gravity isn’t affected._ She tried to hold on, the extreme gravity pulling her in, but quickly the corner of the roof she had been holding onto broke, and she was flung into the black hole.

Once again, everything went black.

When she woke up, decidedly not dead, even if she did have a mild headache, she realized that had been a teleportation mechanism…

If the unexpected teleports would stop soon, that would be amazing. Mostly for her sanity. As she looked around _again_. She realized the land itself wasn’t much different, but the sky was, it had been an unnerving red before. But here a giant black cloudy sphere far in the distance was the only thing in the sky, even if it seemed to be providing perfect illumination, although the lack of stars was just as unnerving as the red moon from before. Just as she was about to move. The clouds _cracked_ with energy, and the whole thing exploded. As she watched, fifteen planets were launched out, and the weird “planet” that had exploded became a black hole… 

Well, she wasn’t quite expecting it to happen that fast but she guessed the game wasn’t really meant to be fair anyways. First things first, she quickly checked her essentials. When she was checking her soul gem however, it showed her something interesting… Something about this place was slowly _pulling_ the despair out of her gem. Which meant that as long as she was careful with her magic she wouldn’t need to waste her grief seeds. 

She couldn’t quite describe how liberating that thought was. Here, she could live forever, never having to hunt another witch. She could even use magic.

Unfortunately, Madoka wasn’t here. She still needed to save her. Even if it meant giving away this freedom.

As she reached out with her magic to her shield, she immediately noticed that it was… odd. It was still her shield, but it felt primed for time travel. Which wasn’t the most odd thing, except that she still felt that her time stop was also still ready… whatever it was about this place that did this, she wouldn’t complain. She had a feeling she would need it. If it was giving her this much access to her abilities she was presumably in for one hell of a fight considering this was a “game” and from what little she knew games were supposed to be balanced.

She then ran downstairs and checked the computer, and found there were some more deployables, she deployed them on the roof as quickly as she could. Which unfortunately wasn’t that quickly, she really wasn’t practiced with video games. It didn’t leave much room left up there, but it was enough room to move around up there, and that is what mattered. However, considering none of the objects seemed like teleporters besides maybe the large platform, she was pretty sure none of the things she had deployed would help her get to her destination. She still tried the large platform, which failed. So she jumped off the roof, and quickly walked down the only path, a path that hadn’t existed before, so hopefully it would at least lead her to the first teleporter. 

It took her an hour to find the thing, at least it seemed the path had wrapped around, so next time she could save time just by running from the back of the house. Unfortunately, it also meant she didn’t know where the rest were. She would have to search later. She jumped into the portal, and found herself somewhere else. As she looked around, she decided this was probably the first planet. Although she couldn’t be sure. 

She would have liked that portal to have had a label, but she figured that would have been too easy. Then she saw a small black humanoid with claws and teeth and the word “ **Imp** ” floating above its head… while odd looking, it wasn’t eldritch in nature like the familiars she usually fought, didn’t even seem particularly threatening… She wondered for a moment whether it was what she was supposed to be fighting, considering its claws and teeth, but it made that part easy enough at least. As soon as it saw her it attempted to swipe at her which she easily dodged backwards with a small jump for distance… Given just how easily that was dodged, she decided it was time to test how effective her old golf club was on this seemingly weak enemy, as she didn’t know how she would restock ammo in this place yet and until she did it was a limited resource. As she pulled it out and swung before the creature could react, she prepared for it to be negligible, she had been told this version was a “punishment”. So she was surprised when she hit it once in the head with her golf club and it bursted into weird objects...

Huh, the game's base enemies evidently weren’t really built to handle the strength of a magical girl, even one who wasn’t exceptionally talented physically. She then attempted to pick up the odd things it had dropped, which disappeared on contact. She could almost feel something fill up a little when she did that… odd. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but then some more imps spotted her. So she figured she shouldn’t waste time, and started fighting them, taking each out in a single hit.

Thus, she began to clear the first planet.

**Author's Note:**

> looks at my only other fic  
> ...  
> ill get back to that soon  
> probably  
> might redo the first chapter before i release the next  
> that first chapter forces my brain to shut down and skim it.


End file.
